Beyond This Morning
by NemesisStrife
Summary: The world is saved, once more. And two will be torn apart, again. :The morning before the storm breaks. moved from KH SephCloud. Valentine's Day oneshot for my beloved.


**Beyond This Morning**__

By: NemesisStrife

Disclaimer: These Final Fantasy 7/Kingdom hearts characters are property of Squaresoft.

Dedicated: To my wonderful Sephiroth, for Valentine's Day. From his Cloud, who is missing Seph-sama badly, since his university entry separated us. Who had the poor timing to leave the day after he proposed. *sighs* ((hearts)).  
2005 – Year of the Reunion.

This story has been moved from the Kingdom Hearts section, where it should belong, because I couldn't bear to put my poor baby with the horrors of a … CidKairiSelphie, or whatever new perversity they've dreamed up. *makes a face*

So now I'm back where *I* belong. *smirks* Firmly in FF7.

Warnings for this chapter

1)Requires both KH and FF7 knowledge. Slightly dark. 

2)Messed up punctuation. Italicised paragraphs usually signal chain-of-thought or basically, bits of description that doesn't quite make it into complete sentences.

3)Written on the spot, completed in about 3 and a half hours. Don't expect quality. *sheepish*^^;;

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He slid out from underneath the covers, sheets pooling around his waist, spilling across his legs, allowing moonlight to play on now-bared skin.

"Can't sleep either?" The rich velvet baritone, so familiar, so beloved, was roughened by worry and exhaustion, husky in the aftermath of the previous night's activities.

"How can I, with you here?" Bittersweet smile (like everything else about this), and he added, "and not for very much longer, more importantly?"

"Sleep is also, the last thing on my mind." Jade eyes, glowing through the darkness of pre-dawn, flickered across his body, not too tired to appreciate the view.

_gold__ hair falling against white skin, the odd starlight of the coliseum world bleaching everything with its silver glow. mako-and-sapphire, the vulnerable curve of the neck down to the collarbone, to the shoulder blade where one arched wing mingled into the shadows of the room._

A sight he would die for, kill for…

_Had_ killed for and would do so again.

"Seph?" The sound of his name drew him from his thoughts, though the light touch against his wrist would have sufficed. Fingers laced through his own, curling around his ungloved hand with a comforting pressure.

"Do you think that kid will make it?" Cloud sometimes didn't know what to wish for, that the worlds would be restored, everything back to how it should be, or that things would remain as they were, overrun by Ansem and the chaos he had unleashed in his madness. But where he still had Sephiroth. Paradox.

"If he doesn't, at least we'll be together until the end."

_I promise_, his lover's thoughts whispered fiercely against his mind, and the grip around him tightened as if to defy anything that would force them apart.

Would it be too selfish to hope that the keyblade failed, to resign the worlds to falling into darkness as long as they remained at each other's side? He'd already given it up once, playing hero, saving the world....

Not again. Let someone else sacrifice everything this time around.

_Let the light be extinguished, for all I care. Let the shadows swallow the universe as long as we face the end together. Just let him stay with me._

"He's at the heart of the worlds now. It's almost the end."

Sephiroth was still tied to the darkness, his fallen one-winged angel, and it was not fair that he couldn't join him as well. Not fair that they were doomed to be separate, no justice in the world that one was fated for defeat and the "winner" condemned to an eternity of a mockery of life without his other half.

'What happens to you if the darkness dies?' He wanted to ask, but didn't dare to. This moment shouldn't be ruined, tainted with doubt or conflict when it was probably the last they'd share.

Cloud knew what would happen to him, though, if Sephiroth died. He'd take the sweet-sharp Ultima blade to his wrists; or slash his wing to ribbons and step off the chasm at the end of the world and enter the welcoming arms of oblivion. And perhaps, find his way back into the arms of a certain silver-haired ex-General.

"You'll survive this, you **will**," Sephiroth's tone was fierce, insistent, and he shook the younger man's shoulders roughly, the harshness of the demand covering up his fear. "You'll live through this."

"I don't want to, without you."

Defiant as always, he thought, mixed anger-and-pride and resignation. Yes, no longer the impressionable teenager from Nibelheim, nor the puppet whose strings he pulled so easily. It was Cloud, it always had been, his lover, the one who held his heart to, the other half of his soul. 

And here and now they could be themselves, not enemies, not rivals, not hero-and-villain, not saviour-and-destroyer of the Planet, not anything except just Cloud and Sephiroth. It was enough.

Pale fingers fumbled with the suddenly-intricate buckles and zips as he tried to dress, so unsteady that he gave up halfway and Sephiroth had to help him, larger hands gently running over his skin, not wasting the opportunity just to touch, to hold on to what they would have only for a little longer. Blue eyes stared fixedly out of the window, wetness glittering along the lashes, as he clenched his fists and tried to stop them from shaking.

_Hands that had been so steady, even as he gripped the blade, stared into emerald eyes and prepared for the death of one, no, **both** of them. Never looking back, not once, even as he plunged into the heart of the Northern Crater where the world narrowed to the two of them, where everything was decided in the sureness of his palms as they closed around the Ultima Weapon, limits broken by the strokes of the Omnislash and the  blood on his hands…_

Then it was Sephiroth's turn to tremble, as small hands reached across his back and fastened the straps of his trenchcoat, fingers hesitating as they brushed against the silken weight of his hair.

The armour was left on the floor, shoulder piece and claw lying where they had been thrown off last night, Masamune also stacked in the corner, the metal-glint dulled by the shadows. None of it was needed for the battle ahead.

The shadows pulled at him, he could feel their anger as Kingdom Hearts itself was breached, shuddering at the hated they radiated outwards. And Cloud, through their link, felt it briefly, both wincing as the scream (like Jenova's call, only not as compelling) reached a crescendo.

Instinctively, Sephiroth pulled Cloud to him, the almost-pain of the tight hold reassuring, wings thrown across each other, enfolding them in the shelter of feather and skin. The ground shook underneath their feet, the fabric of reality itself tearing, ripped asunder.

_mouth__ bending down to kiss, then bite the skin of his neck, teeth pressed savagely against the delicate skin until it broke, drawing blood and tasting the copper-sweet tang_

He shut his eyes and held himself still, unflinching, passive, allowing the older man to mark him, leave ownership and possession traces across his skin.

_a__ promise, a reminder, and a trust, all written in the raw purple-red bruise, sharp pain fading to a dull, sweet ache_

The white sparks descended around them, like so many unseasonal snowflakes, getting thicker and covering everything with blinding brightness.

He buried his face against the hollow of Sephiroth's shoulder, his nails digging into the other's back, panic-strengthened grip surely hurting the older man, but no indication of pain on his face, still as stoic and quiet as that night in the Nibelheim inn, before everything had broken apart

_kiss__ charged with all the passion and wistful regret for the could-have-been, and gazes locked, unblinking, emerald-on-sapphire_

And they knew, that whatever came, whatever the consequence, they would not have changed it for all the world.

"I'll find you again."

"I'll be searching for you too."

_Wait for me._

_Come for me._

_I will._

_I promise._

**Hold me**

**Whatever lies beyond this morning**

**Is a little later on**

**Regardless of warnings**

**The future doesn't scare me at all**

**Nothing's right anymore**

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Give the reviewwhore some C&C.

Please? *forlorn*


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